


and all the joy it brings

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Christmas Presents, Comfort, Eating, F/M, Family Issues, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gift Giving, Holidays, Home Improvement, Humor, Male-Female Friendship, Melancholy, Orphans, Second Time, Sexual Humor, Surprises, Ugly Holiday Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-17 04:40:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13069344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: Written for #cousywinter for the prompts: Holiday decorations, surprise gift. Daisy has anxiety around the holidays and comes to a realization.





	and all the joy it brings

The thing is, she knows a few things about Coulson.

That he's very generous, but also a private person. And she can definitely tell when he's hiding something.

Coulson is hiding something. And she wants to know what it is.

Not because he owes that to her, or anything so serious, but because it's making her anxious. Just like whenever she sees a new holiday decoration go up while the base is still under construction.

Someone hung up mistletoe last week, in the most obvious spot possible. Above the coffee machine. She can guess who the culprit might be.

There's never been a really great holiday in her memory. Not with foster families, or at St. Agnes. And especially not one that didn't end in her being sent from one place to another.

They've had some nice team gatherings to have a celebratory drink, or for a birthday, but around the holidays people go their own ways. Or something awful is happening. Don't jinx it, she thinks, reminding herself they just got back from something awful.

This feels like the first time that it might be different?

She's managed to kind of sneak off in her own way when she's had the chance before. To just not have to deal with the pressure of getting in the way or having someone worry about her.

It's amazing that she has these powers, that she's learned to discipline her body, and lead a revolution against the Kree Empire, but she can't shake off this feeling?

Why did Coulson have that catalog out where she could see it? Why did he try to shove it out of sight when she was standing right there? It's not like it would surprise her if he was buying gifts, or was thinking about it.

Does that mean she needs to give him a gift? Oh crap. What is she supposed to get Coulson? He has expensive collectibles, and scotch, and likes nice ties. She hates the idea of spending hours picking out the perfect tie for him, it would put her to sleep, and he already has that one from Audrey.

Everything else would just be super practical. Giving him some vinyl would be like giving herself a record at this point. And tickets to a festival or some event is out of the question, it might make him feel like he has to find a plus one? Or that she might seem like she's inviting herself to be his-

Nope.

She just would like to see that catalog again, to get an idea of what she's dealing with here, and finds that it's not on the table anymore under the files. Did he throw it away? She looks in the nearby garbage can. No. Is it in his-

"Did you lose something?"

She stands up from rifling through the garbage can to see him standing next to the coffee machine.

"Um, no," she says, gesturing towards the trashcan, then looking up above him. "I was just finding a new home for the mistletoe."

He makes a slightly pained expression and lifts his head to look up above him. "Who put that there?" He asks, awkwardly, as if he didn't notice it, of course.

"I don't know," she says, dragging a chair from the table behind her to set it next to him. She goes to step into the chair, and he easily offers a hand up to support her.

"But, it's not regulation," she says, pulling the tack out from the ceiling and taking it down.

Now he actually looks concerned, and that's not helpful at all. He's going to wonder, because he knows she doesn't care about those kinds of regulations.

She offers her hand to him again as he takes it and helps her down from the chair. "I mean, are we encouraging fraternization now?" she asks him, as she reaches the floor.

"Up until this point it's basically been relegated to being discreet," he nods, studying her expression. "Which is not an official policy. That's probably not regulation," he adds, with just the hint of a smile as he tips his chin at the mistletoe.

"Or, if we _are_ doing a holiday party," she asks, looking around the room, and the scatter of decorations. "We would tell everyone, right? Not make it a surprise or anything?"

"An official party?" he answers slowly, narrowing his eyes.

"SHIELD doesn't do holiday parties? Ever?" she asks him. Not that she wants a holiday party, but she also finds it hard to believe.

"People have always sort of done their own thing," he explains. "Meet up at a bar and have a friendly drink with the team. Meet up at other places, if you're being discreet."

"Okay, it's not that kind of party-"

"Some people invite other agents into their homes," he continues, interrupting. "Exchange presents."

"Like normal people," she mentions to him, just to make sure she knows he's not talking about them.

He gives her a thoughtful smile, then looks down at his coffee mug before he takes a sip.

"Yeah."

  
###

  
Later, she sees Mack and Elena exchange presents near the entrance to her quarters as she walks down the hall. They look so happy, huge smiles on their faces, and then they go inside and disappear behind the closed door.

Presents. And _presents_.

There is the sad thought that she will be getting neither of these kinds of presents, but then the specter of the catalog enters her mind. She's been so busy with administrative stuff, re-establishing diplomatic ties, that she'd almost forgotten about it. And Coulson's been so focused on the rebuild, lately.

It didn't seem like AirMall or one of the travel ones, even though Coulson's spent his fair share of time on planes. It looked kind of old-fashioned. Not like a specialty catalog or one with electronics, or a famous luxury retail catalogue. It looked like stuff from an 80s movie, with ugly sweaters and toys and decorations.

Would Coulson even wear an ugly sweater? She can almost picture Coulson and Fury hanging out at the holidays, because Coulson seems so specifically attached to him. And Fury probably gives the most amazing presents. If she really wants to poke around, she can ask him if it was "friendly" or "discreet".

And she knows that she shouldn't, but as she walks along the hall, she can't resist when she sees Coulson's door is ajar. She has not gone inside, but there is something that looks like a magazine, or a catalog, sitting on the nightstand within. She squints to try to make it out, then taps her knuckle on the door.

"Coulson?" He never leaves his door open like this. It's weird. "Hey, Coulson?" she asks again, pushing the door a little further open and stepping inside.

She has to investigate. Out of concern, of course.

There isn't an answer, but she looks around for a moment, at the neatness of it. Barely giving anything away, although his collectibles are on a shelf, very tidy. Then she peers down at the catalog, and almost trips on a pair of shoes sitting out beside the bed.

Her hand reaches to the lamp to tap it on, when she hears a banging noise from the crack in the bathroom door and moves towards it.

"Dammit!"

She swings the door open and finds Coulson standing in his pajamas, his hands with grout all over them, a broken set of tiles on the floor of the shower.

"Daisy?" he asks, turning all the way around towards her.

"You left your door open," she says, unable to stop smiling at the sight of him. "I thought something might have happened to you."

He wipes his face along his arm, and ends up just smudging the grout along it even more.

"Holiday project. I'm retiling the bathroom," he tells her, stating the obvious. "Or, trying at least."

"Do you need some help-" she starts to ask him, stepping into the narrow space and realizing that it might be tough for them to both fit comfortably.

"I think it's kind of a one-person job," he mentions with a nod, as she raises her eyebrows at him.

"Then, I'll leave you to it," she tells him, turning around back to the door.

"Only, I'm not sure," he answers, stepping towards her and looking over his work so far. He still has a whole wall to cover with the pretty fish scale shaped tiles. "Do you like it?"

"I'm not really keeping up with tile trends," she teases him. "It's...really nice. The color is very you."

It is; it's blue-gray but it has a variation, and it makes her feel relaxed. She almost makes a joke about him liking to take his time in here, but then she stops herself because it makes her have an instant mental flash of him, and boy, do those towels over there look fluffy.

"Just...feels right," he says, and she notices the beads of sweat on his face up close. His face, turned to hers now, clean shaven, without the weeks of stubble or the hardness to it. "But, I could use a break. And a beer," he adds with a smirk that he's slowly dialing up when he notices her catch a smile.

"You should get some holiday tunes in here," she suggests, as he turns on the sink and starts to wash the grout off his arms and face.

"Do you have any?" he asks. "We could compare notes?" he tells her, then stops to dry his face with the soft, fluffy hand towel. "Unless, that's not regulation?"

"No way, I'm totally 'team home improvement'. My shower's next, right?"

  
###

  
"I need your help with something."

She looks up from behind the desk and sees him with his sleeves pushed up and something in hand before noticing his troubled expression as he drops the object to the surface in front of her.

It's the catalog. It's right there in her face, and she turns it now to look at it properly. Not something she's heard of before, but it's obvious that this is it.

"I've been thinking of getting The Hintons something. Robin, specifically," he says, putting his hands in his pockets, wearing doubt on his face. "Too much?"

And that's why he didn't want her to see it. She breathes out a sigh of relief and pushes the recruiting paperwork to the side.

"No, I think that's really nice of you to think of them," she says, sitting back and slowly flipping through the pages. The terrible sweaters, and oversized toys and random holiday decorations are all there as she remembers them imprinted on her brain. "Are you worried they'll trace it back to you?"

"No," he says, waving the idea off. "No. I just don't want to make things...harder."

She thinks she knows what he means. It's how she feels about seeing her dad again. Like she's looking in on something she shouldn't. People with ordinary lives. The fact that Charles isn't there to celebrate with them anymore, and that SHIELD is just a reminder, in a way.

"My family used to get this catalog every year," he explains. "We'd pick stuff out for each other. Of course, I didn't really have money to buy anything, but until I was nine-" he drifts off, letting that sort of summarize his feelings.

"I think Polly would love Robin to have a Secret Santa," she reassures him, sitting up and spreading out the pages in front of her with determination. "I never had anything like that. Where do you start?"

"Well," he begins, tentatively at first, until she scoots her chair to the side to make room for him and he comes to stand next to her. "I tabbed some of the pages," he points out.

Coulson was being generous, and modest, as usual, she thinks with a smile. She listens to him talk, describing why he chose specific items. And thinking about little Phil Coulson picking out something for his mom and dad.

"Did you guys ever get ugly sweaters?" she asks him as she notes an awful reindeer one on a page and taps it with her finger.

"They weren't considered ugly back then, I don't think?" he answers, his voice sounding all warm and heavy with memory. "Yes. I got a matching sweater. Or two."

"But what you really wanted was a toy, right?"

"Absolutely," he says with a smirk and adds, "A Quake action figure might be too obvious?"

"Yeah, we are _not_ doing that," she pronounces, with a shake of her head, and flips to the next folded corner, running her finger across the individual items on the page. "A toy laptop?" she asks him, looking at it circled in red ink.

"Never too young to start hacking," he says, turning to sit balanced on the edge of the desk. "What? It's educational."

"Why don't we just get her a book about secret histories to go with it and call it a day? A toy SHIELD badge?"

"I would've thought that was super cool," he shrugs slightly.

"You still think that's cool," she reminds him, and looks up, propping her chin on her hand and picturing Coulson wearing an ugly sweater.

"I will take that as a compliment," he tells her, as she shuts the catalog and hands it back to him. "You're still here, after all."

"Yes, I am."

  
###

  
After a friendly holiday drink with the team, people do go their own ways.

Of course they're all on call in case someone decides to try to destroy the Earth, but they should get to have a break, to slide back into something normal.

They've earned it.

Coulson got an invite from Mack to celebrate Christmas with his family, and she knows how much that kind of thing effects him.

She already waved off any invitations. Just too busy and there have been an increase in incidents with Inhumans during this time of the year and she feels the responsibility to monitor that.

But before Coulson can head out, she has something to give to him, and waits until the gathering in the common room has thinned out before taking the present out of the cabinet she stashed it in before the gathering.

"Hey," she tells him, reaching for his arm before he heads back towards the hallway. "Do you have a moment?"

"Sure," he replies and she notices that his cheeks are kind of bright, probably from the eggnog they drank earlier and before he can say anything else, she shoves the wrapped present towards him.

"Here."

He stares at it, a mix of amusement and emotion crossing his face before he asks quietly if he can open it. She nods silently and then he sets the package down on the table and starts to carefully pull at the ribbon.

"You're not going to just rip it open?" she says nervously, and he pauses and then slowly pulls the paper apart and stares at the box in his hands, then shakes it.

"Coulson," she says, with a laugh, as he finally opens the box. She waits while he looks down at it, his expression momentarily unreadable, and then finally pulls the ugly sweater up and out of it. "I thought you might like to wear it to the very Mackenzie Christmas?"

"Come with me," he says calmly, holding the sweater and box to his chest and then starting down the hall again. She follows after him as they pass a few agents staring at the sweater in his hand, until they reach the living quarters and he opens the door to his room.

As he lays the sweater out flat on the bed, he goes to his closet and reaches up into it, and pulls down a square box with a perfect bow on top of cheap and corny wrapping paper, then turns back to her with it in his hands.

"Here," he tells her, holding it out to her.

"You got me something after all," she says with a toss of her head, as he goes to the door of his room and cracks it slightly to give them some privacy.

"I started to chicken out when you made a panicked face at the first sight of the catalog," he tells her with an apologetic smile.

She's just trying to read him in the moment, and looking with surprise at the package in her hands. She shakes it, wondering what it is, but it doesn't make any noise.

It's square and it doesn't feel heavy enough to be anything electronic. She pulls on the bow, almost sad to ruin it, and then tears apart the paper, letting it fall to the floor.

Slipping the top off the box, she tosses it aside and then starts to laugh, then puts her fingers over her mouth and glances back at him. "Oh, Coulson," she says, pulling it all the way out and holding the sweater up to him. "You just rolled it all up in that box. Sneaky!"

"Everyone knows what that flat rectangle box means," he tells her with a cocky smile. "You have a lot to learn about wrapping a surprise."

She starts to feel her eyes watering before she even realizes what it happening and he walks up to her and wraps her in a hug, smashing the ugly reindeer sweater in between them.

"I thought I might stay around the base," he says against the top of her head. "If you don't mind the company?"

She hugs him to her more tightly.

  
###

  
She gets back to the base later than expected, still shaken from visiting an Inhuman boy at the hospital.

Coulson had offered to come, but she wanted to do it alone, and the boy is eight and he lost his parents, and she can't sort through all of these feelings right now, she just had to be there for him and tell him what he needed to hear.

All the lights are down low and the base just feels empty. It wouldn't surprise her if Coulson had decided to join Mack's family after she'd turned down the company.

Some Christmas Eve she turned out to be.

Then she notices the flicker of light in the common area and sees that the television is still on, playing a holiday movie she's not familiar with. And there's Coulson, on the couch, wearing his horrible sweater. Alone.

It's too much for her and she wants to just go to her room and bury herself under the covers. But she stops herself and sits down quietly on the couch and looks at him sleeping there.

He was waiting for her. He always waits.

Wearing her present and watching Christmas movies and eating candy, by the looks of the spread beside him, and it's selfish, but she wishes he was still awake, she feels the sudden need to talk to him. Explain everything.

What she told Micah back at the hospital. It wasn't just what he needed to hear. It was that it all happened to her, too, and he's going to make it because she did.

She won't ever have the perfect holiday she dreamed of as a kid. He'll never have his parents back. But they're not alone. They have each other, and even as scary as it is to be reminded of everything they've lost, it's what's right in front of them that matters.

She brushes her fingers against his cheek, as his eyes slowly open, drowsy with sleep, and he blinks at her a few times, reading her expression, before he shifts more upright against the back of the couch.

"You okay?"

She nods first, finding that words aren't coming as quickly as she was able to think them. "I didn't want to make it worse," she starts to explain to him.

"Daisy, don't apologize for that," he answers reaching his hand across his lap to touch hers. "It's a hard time of year."

"That sweater looks terrible on you," she says, covering her mouth with her hand when she starts to laugh at herself. It's going to be either that, or cry.

"Kind of the point," he replies with an awkward shrug of his shoulders.

"It's perfect," she tells him, putting her hand against the woolen polyester blend and pulling at a shoulder seam with her fingers. "You're perfect," she adds, glancing up to meet his eyes.

He seems kind of astonished at the idea at first, trying to find words in answer, eyes trying to capture the moment.

"You should put yours on," he says with a slow smile. "Then we'll match."

"Okay," she agrees.

"I made cookies."

  
###

  
"Cookie?"

She hands the plate up to him as he finishes spreading the grout before setting the last of the tiles in place.

"You were right, it definitely looks better on you," he tells her over the music, opening his mouth wider as she lifts a Santa cookie off the plate and lets him bite the head of it off.

The ugly reindeer sweater slips off one of her shoulders as she aims the rest of the cookie for her mouth while he noticably watches her eat it.

"There's not going to be any left for Santa," he warns her in a low voice.

"Guess I'm going on the Naughty List," she tells him with a grin, as he bends down to get the tiles and gives her a smirk before he starts to set them in place. "Speaking of, you and Fury, were your holidays ever this _discreet?_ "

He pauses in place for a moment then turns to watch her hop onto the bathroom counter, legs dangling over the side from beneath the reindeer sweater.

"Fury never put on my ugly reindeer sweater," he answers her, pressing the tiles into place then smoothing out the grout with a tool. "Not his style." Then he steps down and back to check his work.

"Done?" she asks him, as he hops out of the shower. Coulson is a completist, and while he walks towards her she starts to draw up a mental list of other projects he could set his mind to, when he wraps a hand around one of her legs as she reaches it towards him. "Your hands are dirty."

"I know," he tells her, pulling her up against him until he's situated between her legs, rubbing his hands along them to warm her up. "I'm on the Naughty List, too."

She starts to laugh but then it's drowned out by his kisses. And the thought that he can kiss like this and that they only have one day left before everyone starts coming back to the base is all it takes to makes her tug at the bottom of his t-shirt to get him out of it as soon as possible.

He lets her strip it off him after she hops off the counter and tosses it to the floor, sliding his hands up underneath the ugly sweater. While he's dotting kisses along her shoulder, she looks at the mess of his bed, the tangle of sheets and candies and empty plates spread out on it.

The familiar Coulson smell they'd had when she had ended up in his bed and being surrounded in it, moving over him and the scent of it on his skin and then on hers. It's why she had put the sweater back on after. The same way he's burying his face against her neck now to breathe her in.

His hands still have callouses on them from their time in space, but there's so much softness now that they become soft, too. And there is a kind of deep quiet that swallows up the moment, preserving it in a way that she won't quite be able to explain in words.

Only a feeling. It must be joy.

"Merry Christmas, Daisy."

She wears a huge smile as she leads him back towards the bed in its happy state of disarray.


End file.
